One Woman's Week: The Art Of Conversation

02-06-08

By Karen Fenessey

In the hard work I do for Britain's primary schools, I battle with complicated class registers on a daily basis. But within the education system, there exists a sub-division who are more familiar with a different kind of register. I refer, of course, to 'art' teachers.

My most recent run-in with one of these salivating misfits occurred last weekend. A young woman wearing appalling clothes kept harassing Donny. "Oh! I’ve totally seen your band! You're great!" she babbled on, no doubt mentally spelling 'great' with a number 8 in it.

Sadly, we couldn't get rid of 'Tori' because Donny kept pretending to enjoy her tiresome fawning. When it emerged she was an art teacher, everything slipped into place. What's more, her creepy boyfriend started talking some gibberish to me about Doctor Who, and I soon realised they were sexual deviants, hell-bent on getting us into bed.

Despite my attempts to steer the conversation they insisted on discussing how you can buy big, blue lights off the shopping channel, which you put in your garden to keep insects away and how funny it would be to stick one up your 'arse'. They all bawled their drunken laughs, like a bunch of alcoholic preteens.

Eventually I gave in to my rage. "Oh for fuck's sake! Will you listen to yourselves?"

"Come on, Karen," said Tori, "It would be worth the pain just to be safe in the knowledge you’d never have a bluebottle up your fandango ever again!" Did she expect me to find this funny? "Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of my boyfriend, you sordid pervert?"

It was then I saw her whole twisted art-teacher plan to get Donny and I into some sleazy sexual scenario, no doubt with hidden cameras wired to the internet.

"You can ply Donny with pints of cherry beer all you want, but you will NEVER drag me into one of your demented orgies. Art teacher? You don’t even know the first thing about Picasso’s brushwork!" And with that I stormed off.

Donny can expect no less than a two month sex ban when he eventually crawls back. It surely won't be long before he realises that art teachers are all just drug addicts who failed A-level English and drink their own piss.